Hisar: A Khap panchayat in Haryana‘s Hisar district has reportedly forced a couple to live as siblings. The couple has been married for over a year. Their families alleged harassment and extortion by the village head.

The families claimed that the police did not register their complaint despite several visits to the police station.

Khap panchayats are notorious for their bizarre orders and rulings, inviting even the wrath of the Supreme Court, that in April 2011 declared them illegal.

NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Monday said it was an offence to order women not to use mobile phones or to dress in a particular manner and warned that no one can run a parallel matrimony court to issue diktats against the law to harass young couples.

“Imposing a dress code on women and asking them not to use mobile phones, are such orders not socially retrograde? But these are also against the law. How can anyone ask women not to carry a mobile phone,” a bench of Justices Aftab Alam and Ranjana P Desai asked while hearing a PIL which sought protection of young couples marrying inter-caste or within the same gotra from the wrath of khaps.

The bench said this after taking note of the presence of many elders, sporting colourful turbans and belonging to different khaps of UP and Haryana, in the court’s visitors’ gallery. A large number of khap members were also present in the court room in response to the bench’s desire to hear their views on socially retrograde diktats and honour killings.

But the Sarv Khap Panchayat, a conglomerate of 67 khaps in Haryana’s Rohtak district, nonchalantly told the court that it was the family members who lynched girls and boys who marry outside their caste or within the same gotra, unable to resist social pressure and taunts of relatives. Regulating the khaps would not reduce honour killings, it said.

“Such incidents happen only in the peace loving and law abiding people of the village and normally not in mischievous families,” the panchayat said in its written submissions to the court.

The bench questioned the inspector general of police (Meerut zone), additional director general (law and order) of Haryana along with superintendents of police of Rohtak and Jind districts on khap-dictated honour killings. All the police officers said khaps sometimes adopt socially retrograde resolutions but there had been no instance of their members being involved in honour killings.

The cops said it was the family members who indulged in killings of youth who defy caste and gotra barriers. Amicus curiae Raju Ramachandran explained, “Once the khaps issue an order of censure on matrimonial alliance, the family of the involved boys and girls face the prospect of being socially ostracized. To overcome this, they resort to killing of the couple who defied the khap-imposed social barriers.”

The bench wondered why the police of UP and Haryana were “so anxious to give a good conduct certificate” to the khaps but additional advocates general of both states – Gaurav Bhatia and Manjit Singh – sought time to file a proper affidavit on behalf of the police. But counsel for the khaps said in unison, “What the police officers are saying is correct.”

When additional solicitor general Indira Jaising said “the Sarv Khap Panchayat of district Rohatak has admitted that it adjudicates all matters relating to marriage and family”, the bench said, “That means they are running parallel courts.”

The court came to the rescue of Jaising, who was being shouted down by the counsel for khaps seeking time to file their response to the PIL by NGO Shakti Vahini. The NGO’s counsel Ravi Kant said, “Though khaps are directly not responsible for the honour killings, their orders vitiate the atmosphere. There are many instances where the girl’s family had been excommunicated or the girl’s head had been tonsured.”

Jaising said, “There has been a failure on the part of the police to provide security to couples marrying against social norms fixed by khaps.” The bench asked the khaps to file their written submissions not exceeding 10 pages by February 18 and posted the matter for detailed hearing on March 5.

The decision was taken by the panchayat at Khedar village. Sarpanch Shamsher Singh said, “We have decided to ban alcohol as it is the main reason behind rapes. We have also banned jeans and T-shirts for girl students as it is not a proper dress.”

Shanti Devi, a middle-aged woman present at the panchayat said, “The decision of the panchayat is good and will check the harassment of girls. Poor dressing is the main reason behind rapes”. The panchayat formed an 11-member committee to ensure that the decision is implemented. “We welcome the decision of the panchayat and anyone organizing a DJ party in the village will be fined Rs 11,000. Our main purpose is to close the alcohol shops in the village as liquor is the main reason behind attacks on women,” said panch Mahaveer Singh, a resident of the village.

Youngsters have opposed the diktat. “The decisions will prove to be counter-productive. The mobiles can be useful in alerting parents or the police in case of assaults,” said Ram Kishan, a young man from the village. Another man, who termed the khap diktat outlandish, irrelevant and objectionable, said on anonymity: “These people are vindictive. If we question their decision they will ban us from the

In trouble for sending photo of cake to a girl

Thane: A case of unrequited love has proved costly for an Ulhasnagar youth who sent the object of his affection a birthday cake with her photograph printed on the top. The girl’s irate parents registered an FIR against the youth under the IT Act for stealing their daughter’s photograph from a social networking website.According to the police, the incident happened on August 26, when 20-year-old Vimal Kalani (name changed) a resident near Swami Shanti Prakash Ashram, Ulhasnagar-5 received a cake box at home. Kalani’s family members were surprised, as they had not ordered for any cake.

However, on opening the box, they were shocked to see the cake. Kalani could not explain why her photograph was on the cake or who had sent it.

After a family discussion, Kalani’s father approached the nearby Hill Line police station, where police registered a formal complaint and started investigating.

The police discovered that the cake had been purchased from Ribbons and Balloons cake shop near Gol Maidan, Ulhasnagar-1, and was sent through the shop’s home delivery service. Employees told the police that the boy who ordered the cake had sent the girl’s photograph through the e-mail ID ‘jagdishp.12@gmail.com’.

After referring to the Cyber Crime cell, police found that a boy identified as Jagdish Patil, who was in love with Kalani, had sent the cake. Police said that Patil and Kalani were students at the same college.

On December 6, police registered an FIR against Patil. “We have booked a Jagdish Patil under Section 66 (A) of the IT Act, 2000, for using the girl’s photo without authorisation. We are currently looking for his residential address,” said an officer from Hill Line police station.

A khap panchayat in Hisar, Haryana banned disc jockeys on Tuesday for “creating noise in marriages and other functions” in 42 villages of the district.

HISAR: A khap panchayat in Hisar, Haryana banned disc jockeys on Tuesday for “creating noise in marriages and other functions” in 42 villages of the district.

Phool Kumar, a spokesperson of the Satrol khap panchayat, said that the violators would have to pay a fine of Rs 5100.

On Sunday, one man was shot dead while five others were injured following the clash after few villagers objected to the presence of a DJ in Khurda village of Kaithal district.

Addressing the panchayat, Inder Singh, a khap leader, said, “The DJ system is causing noise pollution and is also harmful to the animals kept by farmers. Due to high volume of music, people can’t milk buffaloes and cows in the morning as the animals are unable to sleep at night.”

“With DJs around, youngsters dance under influence of liquor and sometimes misbehave with women. Because of this women can’t participate in celebrations, preferring to stay indoors. It’s a waste of money, especially when the villagers are facing financial crisis,” Singh added.

There are more than 100 villages in Rohtak, Mahendergarh, Rewari and Bhiwani districts where khap panchayats have prohibited DJs in the last five years.

Dictated by land
Author(s): Richard Mahapatra, down to earth
Date: Nov 30, 2012

It was a season of sons-in-law in Haryana. In October, the
Congress-ruled state government scrambled to clean its records in the
face of alleged undue favours to Robert Vadra, son-in-law of the party
president Sonia Gandhi. That month, khap panchayats, or the
traditional caste panchayats notorious for their diktats in the name
of honouring social customs, also grabbed headlines. They wanted to
regulate the selection of sons-in-law as per their archaic beliefs. On
October 29, leaders of 29 khaps met in Rohtak and demanded banning
same-gotra, same-village marriages under the Hindu Marriage Act.

These seemingly unrelated developments have common roots—land. That
Haryana’s land has turned rare earth is no news. But its repercussion
on society is what the world is discovering now. Vadra, though not a
resident son-in-law, reportedly made windfall gains from land deals in
the state. Analysts say khaps now do not want their resident
sons-in-law to take away the newfound gold. Their obvious targets are
daughters and laws that allow them legal share in ancestral property.

Khaps largely exercise their authority over the Jat community of big
landholders around Delhi, including some districts of Haryana, Uttar
Pradesh and Rajasthan. Traditionally, in these areas marriage is not
allowed within the gotra, which loosely means a sub-caste or clan. But
khaps extend this prohibition to all inhabitants of a village and its
adjacent villages, including individuals from different gotras.
According to khaps, they are deemed siblings due to proximity of
residence and are bound by bhaichara or brotherhood. Strangely, their
diktats apply only to women.

They do not oppose men marrying in same gotras or other castes.
Perhaps they cannot afford to do it. In Haryana’s six
districts—Jhajjar, Rohtak, Jind, Panipat, Gurgaon and Sonipat—where
khaps are active, sex ratio is the lowest in the country: there are
850-870 females per 1,000 males. Such is the scarcity of eligible
brides in the state that men now “buy” brides from faraway Odisha,
Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Nepal. According to sociologist Ravinder
Kaur, 37 per cent of eligible men remain bachelor in the state.

Analysts say such woman-centric codes on marriage are to control the
family’s ownership over land (see ‘Khap panchayat’s codes…’). Khap
members have an instilled fear that in case of marriage by choice, the
girl or her husband would stake claim in ancestral property. By
declaring girls and boys of the same village and adjacent villages as
siblings, they lessen the possibility of young individuals getting
into matrimonial alliance. Experience shows, in an arranged marriage,
girls do not demand share in parental property. Moreover, if a girl is
married several villages away, the possibility of her exercising
inheritance rights becomes remote. They also oppose marriage between
majority and minority gotras as the majority gotra administers a
village and owns most of the land.

Khap panchayat’s codes on marriage

Not in same gotra: By banning same gotra marriage in a village, khaps
ensure that married women do not exercise their inheritance rights on
parental property
Not in bhaichara: Khaps then extend the diktat to several adjacent
villages by declaring boys and girls from those villages siblings and
ruling out marriage alliance among them
Not between majority and minority gotras: By not allowing girls from
majority gotra to marry into a minority gotra, the diktat protects
land of majority gotras who own maximum land in a village.

According to a study by the International Institute for Population
Sciences, Mumbai, the status of women in the family is worsening with
changing economic structure, reforms and mode of production. This is
more so in the National Capital Region (NCR) where the impact of
economic reforms was first felt. Explains Perianayagam Arokiasamy, who
did the study, “Usually larger landholdings are associated with less
autonomy for women.”

Women rights activist Jagmati Sangwan says khaps create false
impression that they are opposed to same-gotra marriage because it is
incestuous. They actually oppose the woman’s right to choose a life
partner. A study commissioned by the National Commission of Women
found that 72 per cent of the khap-dictated honour killings were
related to inter-caste marriages, while those related to same-gotra
marriages were only three per cent. “As couples are selectively
targeted, it is clear that the real motive of khap panchayats is to
control women’s sexuality to ensure that property remains within the
patriarchal caste domain,” Sangwan adds.

Small wonder khaps have lately been vocal about the two pieces of
legislation that allow a woman to marry as per her choice and secure
her rights over ancestral property: the Hindu Marriage Act and theHindu Succession Act. The marriage law does not recognise the gotra or
caste system and thus does not prohibit marriage within the gotra or
in other caste. The Hindu Succession Act, amended in 2005, gives
daughters equal rights in the ancestral property along with sons. It
also gives her the right to seek partition of the dwelling house she
inherits. The previous law gave daughters an equal right only in
self-acquired property of her father and a partial right in ancestral
property. It restricted her right in a dwelling house, in which the
joint family lived. The amendment in 2005 also deleted a section,
which exempted Land Reforms Act, Land Ceiling Act and laws relating to
devolution of tenancies in agricultural land, from the Hindu
Succession Act. These state laws favoured male lineal descendants over
wives and daughters.

Down To Earth spoke to a dozen khap panchayat members in Haryana about
the Hindu Succession Act. None was willing to speak on record, but
said the debate on sharing landholdings with married daughters has
gained momentum since the amendment in 2005. The first such meeting
took place in Rohtak in July 2005, which was attended by 21 khap
panchayats. “The law allows daughters to have rights over property of
their parents, in-laws and also retain individual property. Why does
one need to give so many rights to women?” asks Meher Singh Jhakar,
general secretary of Jhakar Khap, which exercises its authority over
36 villages in Jhajjar district in Haryana. “The new generation has
new expectations that confront the traditional ways. If constitution
of the UK can accept conventions as key provisions why can’t the khap
principles be accepted here?”

Obsession with land

Jats, the way we see them now, as big landholders, are the creation of
centuries of fight over land (see ‘Nomads to landlords’). They opposed
the Hindu Succession Act of 1956 over and again and used political
leadership to prevent fragmentation of their land.

In 1967, within months of its formation as a new state, Haryana passed
a resolution, requesting the Centre to amend the Act. Punjab followed
suit. The Centre did not oblige. In 1979, the Haryana Assembly passed
a bill, amending the Act unilaterally, and sent it for the President’s
approval. The President did not give his assent. Ten years later in
1989, renowned farmers’ leader from Haryana, Chaudhary Devi Lal,
proposed an amendment to the Act during his tenure as the deputy prime
minister. The demand was dropped following protests.

Haryana and five other states, including Punjab and Rajasthan, which
have active khaps, denied equal inheritance rights for women in
parental property, especially in agricultural land, until the 2005
amendment to the Succession Act.

Going by media reports, khap panchyats did not issue militant diktats
against women until 2005. This is the time the NCR witnessed a boom in
property rate and became the country’s largest residential market.
Currently, it has more housing units than the combined tally of
Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Kolkata and Hyderabad. But since their
opposition to the succession law did not work out, khap panchayats now
focus on the Hindu Marriage Act to bring in provisions to stop
same-gotra marriage to retain land within the family boundary.

Nomads to landlords

Nomads to landlords Once a nomadic pastoral community, Jats settled in
Jhajjar, Rohtak, Jind, Panipat, Gurgaon and Sonipat districts of
Haryana in the early 13th century. Then the land was barren. The
Mamluk, Khilji, Tughlaq, Sayyid and Lodi dynasties that ruled Delhi
during the period introduced rahat, or Persian wheel system of
irrigation, in the area.

This fuelled green revolution and transformed Jat pastoralists into
agricultural peasants. Agriculture in the region became more lucrative
after Muhammand Bin Tughlaq constructed the Western Yamuna Canal. With
this newfound prosperity, Jats organised themselves into a powerful
clan, seeding the khap panchayat concept.

Soon they became the rulers’ revenue collectors and colonised more
land. It is said that Akbar elevated some khap members to the status
of ministers to integrate the Jat community into his empire

CHANDIGARH: If the khap panchayats believe eating chowmein can lead to an increased libido and that spicy noodles were behind the recent rise in rape incidents in Haryana, then the transport minister of Punjab thinks playing “vulgar and provocative music” in buses can cause road accidents.

According to Kohar, vulgar music is a great distraction for those behind the wheel. “Frequent playing of vulgar music in buses not only generates mental pollution among passengers but is also instrumental in fatal accidents due to distraction,” he said.

The minister has issued the ban orders to the state transport department, asking officials to implement the same with immediate effect.

Kohar said strict action would be taken against drivers violating the order.

To keep an eye, and an ear, on the lovers of “vulgar songs”, special teams would soon be set up to conduct random surprise checks on the state transport buses, said a senior official of the transport department.

Agreeing that there has not been any bus accident caused by vulgar music in recent memory, the officials added that “prevention is always better than cure”.

The officials said the state censor board would be of great help in marking vulgar songs. The Punjab government has already constituted its own censor board following protests against many Punjabi singers, who are accused of demeaning women in their sexually suggestive songs.

The transport minister has also asked the passengers to inform him if they came across drivers playing vulgar music. The state transport department has a fleet of 3,500 buses for the state and inter-state travels.

SO WHICH ARE VULGAR SONGS PL LIST IN COMMENTS WILL BE INTERESTING READ

ROHTAK: The notorious khap panchayats of Haryana on Sunday demanded a legal ban on same-gotra and same-village marriages, saying such a measure could solve the problem of rising crime against women.

Leaders of 30 khap panchayats who met in Rohtak passed a resolution calling for an amendment in the Hindu Marriage Act to bring the ban on such marriages into effect.

The leaders vowed to take up this demand at the highest level and said they would visit Delhi next month for submitting their representations to the President, Prime Minister and the Union law minister.

The meeting, held at the Chhotu Ram Dharamshala, was hosted by Rohtak’s Chorasi khap and presided over by its leader, Hardeep Ahlawat.

Terming modern culture as “obscene”, the leaders said the state’s social fabric had been vitiated because people were “blindly following so-called modernization which is the root cause of crime against women and incidents of rape”.

“The minds of the younger generation have been corrupted due to invasion of obscene and vulgar culture. Our youngsters have forgotten the rich values and customs of our society,” said Baljit Malik of Gathwala khap.

Addressing the meeting, Hardeep Ahlawat demanded a change in the law to ban matrimonial ties between couples from same gotras and same villages — traditionally viewed as brothers and sisters.

“A legal ban on such marriages would also help curb the menace of honour killings and female feticide which has brought a bad name to Haryanvi society,” said Om Prakash Dhankar, a khap leader.

Other leaders argued that there would not be any honour killings or female foeticide if same-gotra marriages were banned. “People kill their daughters out of the fear that one day they might elope with men of the same gotra,” said Dhankar.

“A delegation of khap panchayat would visit Delhi on November 5 with copies of our memorandum to be handed over to India’s top leaders. We would also call on the national commission for women the same day and asked it to raise the demand,” he added.

The khap leaders distanced themselves from a recent statement of a khap mahapanchayat spokesman who had sought lowering of the marriageable age of girls from 18 to 16 years to avoid rapes. The leaders said such statements had been spoiling the image of khap panchayats.

“We strongly differ with such people. We have decided to launch social awareness campaign against extravagant marriages, dowry etc in society,” he said.

“There is no need to give phones to women and children. It distracts them and is useless. Why do women need phones? My mother, wife and sister never had mobile phones. They survived without one,” said Saini.

His comment has shocked women across the nation. Many have asked as who is he to decide whether women need mobile phones or not?

Saini is not the only politician or organisation which has come out with bizarre comments targeting women and their various rights.

Recently former Chief Minister of HaryanaOm Prakash Chautala had endorsed medieval ideas of Khap. Like the influential caste councils, Chautala also wants girls to be married off at an early age to control rising rape incidents. Khap panchayats want marriageable age limit should be abolished and girls should be married off as early as possible to decrease incidents of rape.

“Boys and girls should be married by the time they turn 16-year-old, so that they do not stray… this will decrease the incidents of rape,” Sube Singh, a Khap representative, said.

Another Khap member said, “As soon as the children attain puberty, it is natural for them to have sexual desires but when these are not fulfilled, they stray… so there should not be any minimum age limit for marriage.”

Almost akin to a Taliban-type diktat, a Khap panchayat in Baghpat in July, 2012 had also banned love marriages and barred women below 40 years from going out for shopping and using mobile phones. Meanwhile, a Khap leader recently had asked youngsters to refrain from eating junk food like chowmein.

The bizarre statement was made by Jitender Chhataar who said that men experience hormonal imbalances when they eat chowmein, momos and then they commit rape. In a shocking reaction to the recent spate of rape cases in Haryana, Khap panchayat members earlier blamed girls for such incidents.

One Khap Panchyat member gave a bizarre solution and suggested that the marriageable age for girls should be reduced to 16 years. When asked why rapes are occuring at this scale in Haryana, Sube Singh said that movies and television are to be blamed for rapes. “I believe this is happening because our youth are being badly influenced by cinema and television. I think that girls should be married at the age of 16, so that they have their husbands for their sexual needs, and they don’t need to go elsewhere. This way rapes will not occur,” commented Singh.

So now after khap panchayats, we need to fight this misogynist pig, Mayawati how can you have him in your party, throw him out now